I think it’s probably important to explore the label “misfit” if I’m going to delve into my thirty-odd years of being one. There are two prevailing theories on being a misfit. One is that it’s a conscious choice that, somewhere along the line, an individual makes, based on general dissatisfaction with what everyone else is doing. This tends to be the theory that “normal” people (and, all too often, families) ascribe to when faced with someone who just doesn’t seem to fit in, even if they have the opportunities and should have the skills. But I think there’s a flaw in this theory. Maybe it holds water when a kid goes wayward for a few years, then turns around and comes back into the fold. Those kids are the thrill-seeking misfits – then they get bored with it and go back to conventional living.
Then there are the kids like me.
I’m not sure when other people began to recognize that I was kind of weird, but thinking back on it, I know that I was just not a normal child. Even before a nasty incident with my paternal grandfather altered the course of my life forever, I was a kid who spent an enormous amount of time constructing fantasy worlds in my head – worlds that were often more real to me than anything else. I integrated strange ideas. For instance, when my much older sister took me to see Star Wars (the re-release, in 1979), I was four. I was completely captured by it and spent hours playing out battle scenes on my wooden jungle gym. But for some reason, I hated Princess Leia. I villainized her in my head, and then I began adding music from my repertoire (my brother was always happy to share his records with me, as long as I was careful.) Thus, songs from Foreigner’s Double Vision ended up becoming meaningful parts of my Star Wars fantasies. Han Solo singing “Blue morning, blue day, won’t you see things my way” to Leia seems truly bizarre now, but it worked at the time. My way of making sense of emotions that were supposed to have gone over my head, I guess. In any case, I’m reasonably sure that this kind of play would have separated me from the majority of my peers (if not all of them).
Aside from strange playtime pastimes, my nighttimes were terrifying. I not only had nightmares (for some reason, my parents decided I was being scared by Scooby Doo episodes and for a short time I was banned from watching it), I also had very real and appalling hallucinations in which the face of a frightening, bearded man would appear at eye-level on my wall and, in a low voice, talk to me, telling me frightening things that I no longer remember. I only know that it happened often and that it started when I was as young as three. And that I had the good sense not to report it. He would eventually talk me into a restless sleep.
So, when did I choose to become a misfit?
I didn’t.
It chose me.
INTERLUDE: A Word About Truth
My name is not, in truth, Claudia Harper. In fact, most of the names of the people in this story have been changed, either to protect them, as in my case, or at their request. None of this makes the story any less true, or real. A name is simply a label we give to something to give it meaning. I am Claudia and Claudia is me. We share the same purpose-to tell the truth about the events leading up to this point in my life.
A final thought. Truth is entirely subjective. My truth, my experience, my knowledge is just that: mine. My sister has struggled with my story, because she tells me that my truth and that of our parents is so different that it is hard for her to know what to believe. This might bother me, but it doesn’t. My truth is the only one of consequence to me. I was there. I experienced it. I lived it day by hellish day. No one who was on the outside looking in could know what the truth really was, or what it is today. And this is not just true for me. It is true for all of us. Never let anyone lead you to doubt your truth. You’re the only one who really knows what happened.
Posted on March 23, 2007